On Friday night, two days after we'd arrived, the concierge helped me arrange a sunset dinner on the beach. I told Nic about it beforehand -- we'd seen a party do it the night before, and I thought it would be pretty fun.

She professes that what actually happened during dinner was a surprise, though. This is probably why she was goofing off while I was trying to take a picture.

In the background is another couple who had started their dinner awhile before ours. We got there about 20 minutes before sunset. Here was our view:

After our server poured the wine, I told Nicole I had a present for her, and asked her if she wanted it now. Maybe this was when she made the goofy face above, I don't know ... at this point I was so nervous about it being a surprise that I can barely recall what kind of small talk we were making. I had managed to keep the ring box hidden in my camera bag, and was about to get it out when the server delivered our appetizer.

It was foie gras, and after a couple minutes of nervous chatter I brought it up again, and got out the box.

At this point I should mention that during our trip to Seattle over Valentine's weekend, I gave her a necklace from Tiffany, which, like all Tiffany gifts, comes in a turquoise box. So when I handed her the Tiffany turquoise box on the beach, I'm not sure what was thinking she'd find inside, this time.

Whatever she expected, she lit up like a Christmas tree when she saw the ring. I asked her if she would marry me, as I slipped it on her finger. She nodded, with a huge grin on her face, and leaned forward to give me a hug. Our attentive server refilled our wine.

Incredibly relieved but still quite nervous and now also just as giddy, we continued dinner, and it occurred to me that because we'd been interrupted by the waiter, she hadn't actually said "yes," so I stood up, knelt on one knee, took her hand, and asked her again. She said yes.

Not sure whose hands were shaking more as I tried to take this pic.

We had a bit of an audience. The table was set up about 20' in front of one of the open-air restaurants of the resort -- in other words, we were between the dining area and the ocean -- and there were probably about 40 other diners who could see pretty much everything we were doing. However, the exhibitionist in me was oddly subdued, and although I was defiantly and energetically shouting "SHE SAID YES!" in my head, I declined to actually turn to the rest of the diners and make the same announcement out loud.

The rest of dinner was a blur. Our server continued to be as attentive as anyone who was not proposing to someone else could wish, but he was so friendly that I can hardly count it against him. Dessert was a white chocolate flan-like thing in the shape of a heart, and white chocolate has never tasted better.